Clint Eastwood is in talks to direct a movie about a US aid worker being kidnapped by Somali militants.

Clint Eastwood

Clint Eastwood

The 86-year-old filmmaker is eyeing Jessica Buchanan's memoirs 'Impossible Odds', which tells the real life story of her capture by militants and rescue by a Navy SEAL team in 2012.

Brian Helgeland - whose previous credits include 'L.A. Confidential' and most recently Kray Twins crime thriller 'Legend', which he directed and wrote - is penning the script and Greg Silverman and Julia Spiro will be producing.

Buchanan went to Somalia in 2011 to help disadvantaged children only to later be kidnapped along with a colleague and held for ransom for 93 days by Somali land pirates after her escort and protector sold them out.

Her husband Erik Landemalm - who wrote some chapters for the book - desperately worked with various agencies to get his wife rescued before American President Barack Obama sanctioned the use of military force.

If Eastwood does helm the thriller it will be his latest big screen foray into real life stories following his movies 'American Sniper' and 'Sully', which starred Tom Hanks as Captain Chesley 'Sully' Sullenberger, who was the pilot who landed a commercial aircraft in the Hudson River in 2009.